RJC Leaders

Dennis Peters (RJC Director)

Dennis served as a missionary in Japan for 20 years. He and his family now live in the Sacramento, California area, and carrying on pastoral ministries there, along with ministry with Japanese throughout the US and Canada. He has helped lead in regional conferences in Northern and Southern California, along with the English section of Equipper Conference. Dennis became the RJC Director in March 2014.

Naoko Brown (RJC Academy Assistant Director)

Naoko was born in Shizuoka City in Japan and has been living in the US for about 23 years. In
1997, an American woman who was on staff with ISI lead her to Christ and discipled her. Currently Naoko is
working in a research lab at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She is serving as the very valuable administrative assistant. In the past, she also served to set up and manage the Japanese home page of Pocket Testament League.
for the RJC Academy

Rick Chuman (RJC Network Council)

Rev. Dr. Rick Chuman is the Executive Director of JEMS (Japanese Evangelical Missionary Society). Prior to JEMS, Rev. Rick served 20 years as a pastor in the OMS Holiness Church of North America. He earned his BA in Linguistics from SDSU, a M.Div. in OT languages from Bethel Seminary West and a D.Min. in Marriage and Family Ministries from the Talbot School of Theology.

Rick is married to Kathy (15 years) and has two great kids, Timothy (10) and Kaylie (9). He is a Navy brat who lived in Japan (Yokosuka) for four years during his early childhood. A visit to Japan in the summer of 2008 rekindled his love and burden for the people of Japan and as a result, in September of 2009 he assumed the position of JEMS Executive Director.

Paul and Liz Godwin (RJC Network Council)

Liz and Paul have been part of the RJC movement from the beginning, and have provided leadership in many different capacities. They have served as the major link with Northshore Baptist Church. They are part of the ISI staff, and since 2013 they have been living and ministering in the Kansai area.

Dennis Himes (RJC Network Council)

Ellen and Dennis have been married for 49 years. They have two children and one grandson. He worked in Christian radio for 20 years from Denver to Eugene to Seattle and finally to Los Angeles. Ten years for a Growing Families International, a christian parenting ministry. For the last 12 years he has had his own little video/audio production company.

Dennis is serving as the RJC media director.

Ken Milhous (RJC Network Council)

Ken is a missionary with Converge Worldwide, reaching Japanese in the United States, primarily
Boston, where he pastors the Boston Japanese Christian Church. He also serves as the Director of Japanese
Ministry in the U.S. for Converge Worldwide. He was raised in Japan as the son of missionaries, living in Nagoya for a
majority of his time there.

Richard Nakamura (RJC Network Council)

Richard was born and raised in Seattle, Washington as a fourth generation Japanese-American Buddhist. In 1979 he became a Christian at the age of 19. The change brought about a shifting of priorities which led him to become a missionary to Japan from 1989-2011. He is married to Keri and they now have 5 children, ages 6-19, living in Bellevue, Washington. Richard’s continues to minister to the Japanese with SEND International.

Satoru Nakanishi (RJC Network Council)

Satoru is the Associate Pastor at Japanese Presbyterian Church in Seattle. Growing up in Japan, he first came in contact with the Bible when he was 18 years old, and two years later invited Christ into his life. He studied business at Judson University, IL, and after graduation, he worked as a ‘salaryman’ in Japan for 6 years. In 2005 he felt a call to ministry and studied at Regent College. After graduation he started ministering the Japanese speaking people in Seattle.

Ray Sidney (RJC Network Council)

In Japan he heard and accepted the call from God to become a part of the “Hallelujah Gospel Family Choir” which is a network of choirs under God’s anointing led by missionary Ken Taylor. He’s been spreading the good news about Jesus by teaching traditional and contemporary gospel music to the people of Japan, as well as in Korea and elsewhere.

Don was born and raised in Washington state. It was at a small rural church at Preston, Washington where he first heard of Jesus, trusted him as his savior, and heard the call to missions.

JoAnn and he went to Japan as church-planting missionaries in 1969. Their first child was two years old at that time, and the other two were born and raised there. Most of their ministry was in helping to start new churches in the Kanto area, but they also did inter-denominational ministries, like serve as English editor of the Operation Japan Prayer project.

In 2004 they returned to Preston to take care of Don’s mother and to work full-time with Reaching Japanese for Christ. In September 2013 his mother entered heaven, and now ministry again takes a new twist for the Wrights.

He served as the director of RJC until 2014. He directs the RJC Academy, and with expert help functions as the website servant.